A kind of magic
by runaway-run
Summary: This is how Beauty and the Beast could be if it were set nowadays...at least according to me. I know this has been done a lot already, but if you have the chance, come check it out!
1. Isabel

_The Beauty and the Beast _has always been my favorite Disney movie and I've wanted to write this story for a while now, I just never took the time to write down my ideas about a modern retelling of the story. I know, it's been done lots of times already, but I hope someone will like my story anyway! 

Disclaimer: I don't own **The Beauty and the Beast** and sadly I don't think I ever will!

A kind of magic

_1 – A simple kind of life_

The boy sat on the stool in front of the old grandpiano. Lately, he had been feeling more and more alone and the music he could produce always made him feel better, almost like he wasn't alone in that giant mansion.

But he was. He wished he could leave, he had been so tempted to do it, so many times, but he knew they couldn't see his face. His face had to be hidden. Always. Even when his father came by to visit him, to bring him food and other supplies, he never took the mask off. He was so used to wearing it… he kept it on most of the time, even if for anyone else such a thing would be impossible to do. He didn't know what the trouble with his face was; he didn't have scars or burns or anything of the sort on it, so there must have been something unusual with his features.

He knew the people he once called family couldn't stand the sight of him and his face and he felt terrible thinking about it. He wondered why, what he had done to deserve to be treated like a madman, avoided by everyone, hiding all the time.

As years went by, his father started coming more and more rarely, bringing everytime more and more things with him. The boy, now a young man, thought it was because the only parent he had left was disgusted by him and wanted to see him as little as he could.

So many years alone, the young man had become an amazing piano player. He could play everything, he could play for several hours without getting tired, he didn't mind calloused hands. Usually, when his father asked him what he wanted as a birthday present, he'd ask for new music sheets. Every year the sheets were more complicated to read, fuller of notes, and he owned a huge collection. Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Schuman, Strauss, Liszt… he knew lots of pieces by heart.

He also liked reading: time went by so quickly when he let himself be entranced by someone else's story. There was a huge bookcase in one of the rooms of the house and he had read lots of those books.

The best thing he "owned", though, was a stray dog that had once wandered into the garden and stopped there with him ever since. The dog, renamed by him Chopin, after one of his favorite composers, almost made him feel like he had a real friend.

Almost.

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Isabel left home and started walking down the road, headed toward the Portkeynes library. She loved Saturdays, because she had a lot of time to herself and she could read for as long as she wished, sitting comfortably in the reading room of the library. That day was no different: she planned on spending the morning in there, relaxing and losing herself in the life of someone else, which would undoubtedly be more interesting than her own.

She was still having some troubles to feel at ease in the new town. New for her, at least: Portkeynes was about three hundred years old and most of the people in town seemed to be elderly ladies and middle-aged men and women. There weren't many young people and the ones who lived there often complained that there was nothing to do in Portkeynes.

Isabel smiled at one of her neighbours, Mrs. Radcliffe, as she walked by her detached house.

"Hello, Isabel! How are you doing today?" the dark-haired woman in her late forties asked.

"I'm doing just fine, thanks. How are you and your family, Mrs. Radcliffe?" Isabel politely asked back.

"Oh, you know, the usual. Chuck's on a business trip and the kids are okay."

The kids, Tom and Tess Radcliffe, were twins and the same age as Isabel, nineteen. She had only met Tess a couple of times, while Tom always seemed eager to show her around if she needed something. "Tell them I say hi!"

"I will! Have a good day!"

"You too!"

Isabel waved at Mrs. Radcliffe before walking down the street. When she finally entered the old, beautiful building that now served as a library, she smiled. She had always felt more comfortable around fictional folks than common people and she wasn't sure why. Everything about them was reassuring, she guessed.

She had been reading _Spoon River Anthology_ for less than half an hour, when someone interrupted her: "Isabel!"

She looked up and found herself staring into Tom Radcliffe's dark eyes: "Hi, Tom…"

"Hey! My mom said you were probably coming to the library, I thought I'd reach you." He said, not bothering to lower his voice.

"Are you looking for a particular novel or just-"

Tom cut her off: "No, reading isn't really my kind of thing. I just wanted to talk to you. My sister and I are throwing a party tomorrow night, wanna come?"

Isabel hesitated. She wasn't much of a social person and she disliked parties strongly. "I don't know…"

"Come on, it'll be fun! You've been in Portkeynes for, what, a month? And you need to get acquainted to more people, including my friends!"

He sounded so enthusiastic that Isabel had to give in. "Alright, I'll come."

"Great!" Tom smiled, showing off his perfect teeth. He wasn't bad to look at, Isabel had to admit, with his dark hair and intense eyes, but she didn't like him for some reason. Sometimes when he looked at her she felt so uncomfortable… "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see you."

Isabel watched Tom leave the room before focusing again on her beloved book. She didn't want to think about anyone but the many different characters created by the pure genius that was Edgar Lee Masters.


	2. The mansion

Here comes chapter two! I hope you people like it and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: sadly, I don't own Beauty and the Beast. But I'll keep dreaming…

**2 – The mansion**

When Isabel woke up and glanced outside her bedroom window, she smiled. It was a perfect day to relax and read, in the small garden of the house she and her father had moved in three weeks before. After breakfast, she picked one of her favorite novels and went outside: it was sunny but not extremely hot and a gentle breeze caressed her skin as she comfortably lay on a deck chair.

She was getting to her favorite part of the novel, when a voice startled her: "Isabel!"

She looked up, into Tom's dark brown eyes. "Tom! Hi…I wasn't expecting you-"

"I had some free time and I thought I'd come over. You're reading again?" Tom asked, as he sat next to Isabel. "Don't you get bored?"

"I love reading." Isabel closed her book after marking the page. "I thought you'd be busy today."

"Why?"

"Last night, at the party, you seemed to be having a good time with…what was her name? Kirsten?"

Tom looked confused. Isabel thought he probably had forgotten about the girl because he got drunk, so she decided to drop the subject. She didn't really care anyway and she had realized what kind of guy Tom was: a womanizer. She hadn't had much fun at the party, but she knew it was going to be like that. Everyone had always told her she was different from most girls and it was true, she was well aware of that…but she wasn't willing to pretend to be someone else just to be accepted by a group of people with no personalities of their own.

"Do you wanna go out with me tonight? It'll do you some good to get away from your books for a while." Tom said, running a hand through his short, dark hair. He thought that gesture made him look irresistible.

Isabel frantically started thinking of a good excuse to not go out with him. "Well, I…actually…"

Suddenly, her phone rang. She read her father's name on the display and answered, grateful to her father for interrupting her and Tom's conversation: "Hi dad! Where are you? I thought you'd be home by now…the car broke down? Yes, I'll call the mechanic…where are you exactly? Okay, I'll be there soon."

"Problems?" Tom asked, raising his eyebrows.

_Man, is he stupid or what? _Isabel tried to reply politely:"Yeah, my father's car kind of…died…while he was driving back home. He was out of town…I should call the mechanic and go there."

She got up and hurried inside her house to find the number of the nearest station. Portkeynes probably had only a couple.

Isabel thought Tom had left and she was therefore surprised to see him standing in the hall, waiting. "I'll drive you to…wherever your father is. I guess you only have one car, right?"

Isabel nodded. She didn't feel like accepting a favour from him, but her father was more important than her reluctance toward Tom Radcliffe.

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"Dad!"

Isabel quickly got out of Tom's car and reached her father, who was standing next to their old vehicle and talking to one of the mechanics that had come to pick it up. "Isabel…" He hugged his daughter and waved at Tom, when he noticed him. "You didn't need to come, you know…"

"What happened?" She asked, ignoring her father's remark.

"I don't know. I was driving down this road and then all of a sudden…the engine stopped working and the car came to a halt. It's a good thing I was driving slowly." He explained, then went back to talking to the mechanics.

Isabel was going to tell Tom he could leave, but then she noticed something. "What a beautiful house!" She exclaimed, before crossing the road and getting closer to the huge, tall gate.

The house was wonderful, there was no doubt about it, but it looked like no one had lived there for dozens of years. It looked like there were at least three floors and more windows than one could count. The garden that surrounded the building had definitely been astonishing too, once, but now the grass grew everywhere, unkempt. _The proper word for this place should be mansion, not house, _Isabel thought.

"I never knew who are the people that own the place." Tom said, beside Isabel. "I don't think anyone in town knows for sure …the kids believe it's haunted and the adults say it's dangerous, so no one really goes in there." He looked away. "Do you wanna come back?"

"No, thanks. I'll wait for my dad." Isabel replied, still staring at the house, fascinated by it. She didn't notice anything else, she didn't notice Tom leaving nor her father calling out her name once they were ready to leave.

"Isabel!" her father reached her and put his hand on her shoulder. "We're going home."

"Okay…"

Isabel didn't want to leave: her curiosity had taken the best of her and now she wanted more than anything to get in, to explore the old house. After all, it wouldn't hurt anyone: Tom had said he didn't know who the owners were and it didn't look like anyone cared about the old mansion, or it wouldn't look that way now.

"Driving you here has been nice of Tom."

Isabel looked at her father: "I guess so. We're only about twenty minutes out of town, though."

"He's a handsome boy, I thought you two…"

Isabel interrupted him: "He may be handsome all you want, but he's certainly not a bright guy. He's so…shallow." She sighed. "I think he's never cracked open a book all his life… and he thinks I'm the weird one!"

"You're not weird. You're a lot like your mother…if she was still here, it would be impressive to see how much the two of you are alike!"

Isabel smiled at the thought of her mom. She was fourteen when her mother had passed away. Her mother had taught her to read and to appreciate good books and for that reason she was with her everyday.

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The young man woke up very early. He hadn't slept well: first he had had a horrible nightmare and then Chopin had started barking because he was hungry.

"Right…I forgot to feed you last night, I'm sorry…" he muttered, as he washed his face to wake up fully. He walked downstairs and gave Chopin something to eat.

He started thinking. It wasn't uncommon for him to have nightmares…but in spite of that he could never get used to them. He knew he never would…

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice the front door opening and someone coming in. "What are you doing?"

The young man turned around. "Father!" he smiled, then remembered his father couldn't notice his expression under the mask and looked down. "I was feeding Chopin."

The man put on the kitchen table several bags. "Here, remember to put the food in the fridge." He spoke calmly. His hair was starting to turn grey and he had some wrinkles on his face: he looked just like every other fifty year old guy. No one could have guessed that he had locked his son in a mansion and forced him to wear a mask. "Did anyone enter the house or try to?" he asked.

"Not a soul." The boy always felt so small and inadequate whenever his father was there. But at least for a while he wasn't totally alone. He wasn't totally forgotten.

"How are you? Been sick lately?"

The boy shook his head.

"Good." The man left the room and the boy followed him, like a lost puppy: "Father? Do you have to leave already?"

"I'm really busy."

"Are you sure? I wanted you to listen to a new melody I learned to play…"

"Maybe next time. Goodbye."

His father left, locking the front door. The young man reached the nearest window, withdrew the curtains and stared at his father walking through the garden, opening the gate, closing it behind him and getting into his car.

He went upstairs and lay on his bed, trying to get back to sleep. But he couldn't.


End file.
